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At East 76th walk the subtransit drifted to a halt and Clarkwell Brockhurst emerged into a crowd of gaily dressed Eyimalians. They diffused sedately out the doors, past the changing patterns of the videomosaic posters, into the moonless night. They were very tall. Elongated bodies surrounded Clark and drew him along, bobbing down and up like sea plants at each step to alleviate the strain on their legs. Voices called back and forth above his head.

"You know it's perfectly safe," one said. "The guarding eye does not need light."

"Yes, but..." An arm tightened around a waist and someone laughed, but all were slightly uneasy in the modernistic darkness. Back on Eyimalia the city streets were still brightly lit at night. They pressed close after those who had lanterns.

Clark strolled along comfortably. Nights here reminded him of the winter his family had spent in town on the homeworld while his brother was in the hospital. The farm kids, left alone while the grownups battled to save the dying boy from the final horrors of his allotted treatment, had careened through the capital, swiped vegetables from the starlit rooftop gardens and sang the deadcaller in the darkened streets. Magic confronted them at every turn. They swam through water lines, bathed in municipal laundry-fluid pipes, tapped the commercial scent carriers until they stank of perfume, rode the subtransits back and forth and the lift tubes up and down all day and nobody cared what they did. Then in spring the child died and they all went home, the case neither lost nor won. The treatment was either involuntary medication or rescue, or both because the boy changed his mind every fifteen minutes until he lost consciousness.

The group paused at a corner and moved ahead. Eyimalia House came into view, neatest on the block because the Eyimalian Student Association cared for it and no one cared for the rest. At this house only were the housepane cleaners changed more than once a year, the illuminanes repaired, and the plants on the porch well tended.

Clark shook out his cloak. Though he had kept his formal outfit in inhibitor bath since the day his father gave it to him, the biocloth managed to grow in the Resheborian heat. One sleeve of the tunic was slightly longer than the other. What a place, he thought. Bright sun, bugs, and hot, hot, hot.

A cool breeze fluttered people's clothing. They were on the Cape now, near the sea. Actually, it wasn't a bad planet, just a little too close to its sun.

Guests wandered in and out of Eyimalia House and over the porch and yard, eating hors d'oeuvres and drinking native wine laced with drugs. The party had not yet broken up into groups. People drifted from one conversation to another, stepping carefully over the little garden that lined the walk, greeting friends in sibilant Eyimalian. They all knew everyone. No two collided without a hug or a handtouch and at least a chat. Some people turned to look at Clark, most of them strangers. Could a jet-black cloak and scarlet tunic really conceal a fainting heart? He reached up and pressed the first hand that met his. "My name's Clarkwell Brockhurst. Pleased to meet you."

"A pleasure. I am Efirr Nije. You are a friend of Paula Maxwell?"

Clark raised one hand to pull at his mustache, then stopped himself. "Yes. I'm a friend of the house. I used to work with some of the people here," he asserted.

"I see. Where?"

"Drug campus. In the Isadora Maxwell Center."

"Indeed, indeed. You know Dr. Arletty." Efirr Nije looked not at Clark but beyond him, over his head. That was Eyimalian courtesy, but Clark found it disconcerting.

"He is my supervisor."

Efirr smiled rather faintly. "We all have great regard for him. He brought many of us here. He was crucial, yes, crucial in arranging the Allied Research Program on Eyimalia. You yourself are perhaps involved in that?" he asked without sounding terribly interested. He seemed to be thinking of something else, or perhaps he was a little drunk.

"Yes," Clark answered, hoping to keep the discussion away from his work, but the words had been spoken and now he began to worry. The drug he was investigating had not worked on his experimental animal. The worm simply excreted it. He fingered the hem of his tunic, half wishing he had taken the trouble to don the ceremonial belt. No, he preferred the simplicity of this arrangement. Three colors: black cloak and leggings, red tunic, yellow hair. Don't pick at the clothes, he thought. He pulled at his mustache.

Probably an immune strain, he told himself. Another kind of worm, even another individual of the same species, would probably be susceptible. It happened all the time in human populations, a quirk of individual metabolism let a drug slip through the system. Look at Guapans and deicin: no effect on them, damn near killed anybody else.

His new acquaintance was greeting another stranger, so Clark took the opportunity to excuse himself and edge toward the house. Inside, the rugs and couches had been put away to make room for the people, flowers and refreshments. In one corner a dozen men and women in dark vests were dancing by candlelight to nyoda music. Dancing, Clark echoed to himself, and stomping, too, on the eighth notes. Eyimalians were usually so careful with their long bones. Conversation paused on the eighth note when the dancers jumped, arms and legs flung out with no regard for passers-by, so that the dancers were surrounded by a clear space into which they exploded from time to time, until the command of the music pulled them back together.

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MORE ON THE DRUG MYSTERY..................... CONTINUE.....................

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